Dr. Meyer Wiener 
Mini-Biography

Dr. Meyer Wiener was an eye specialist who practiced at Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, Missouri.  He was born in St. Louis on January 10, 1876, and graduated from the Missouri Medical College in 1896.  He went on to post-graduate studies at the University of Berlin, University of Heidelberg, and the Sorbonne at the University of Paris. 

 

Dr. Wiener served as a professor of clinical ophthalmology at the Washington University School of Medicine from 1910 to 1946 and he actively practiced medicine until his retirement due to medical reasons in 1936.  As part of both of these roles, Dr. Wiener worked closely with his associate, Dr. Henry Wolfner.  During World War I, Dr. Wiener was commissioned as a major in the United States Army where he served in multiple leadership roles within several medical corps hospitals’ ophthalmology departments.

 

Starting in 1936, Dr. Wiener spearheaded the group of citizens, known as the Henry L. Wolfner Memorial Association that raised funds to build the Henry L. Wolfner Memorial Library to better serve blind citizens in the St. Louis area.   He chose to name the library after his associate of thirty-five years.  Dr. Wiener was also a former director of the prevention of blindness on the Missouri Commission for the Blind.

 

In Dr. Wiener’s later years, he had a second career in San Diego.  For twenty-five years, Dr. Wiener volunteered as a consultant and lecturer in ophthalmology at the U.S. Naval Hospital, San Diego.  During World War II, Dr. Wiener was responsible for organizing the residency training in ophthalmology and he established the Navy’s rehab program for the blind.  In 1954, Dr. Wiener again founded a new service for the blind, the San Diego Foundation for Visually Handicapped Children, to assist visually disabled children with their integration into mainstream society.  Dr. Wiener passed away on January 18, 1965.

 

Throughout his life, Dr. Wiener was a prolific writer and editor.  He wrote several hundred articles and multiple books.  Dr. Wiener even donated the royalties for several textbooks he wrote to support the St. Louis Service Club for the Blind.  He served as editor for the St. Louis Medical Review and the Annals of Ophthalmology.  Dr. Wiener was also the associate editor for the American Journal of Ophthalmology.  This and several eye surgical tools he invented are his lasting legacy to the medical community.